


Civil Ways

by Golbez



Category: Last Word (Video Game)
Genre: Affection At First Discourse, First Meetings, Gen, POV Third Person, Pre-Canon, Secretly Snarky Servant, Self-Indulgent, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, em dash abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 03:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17696975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golbez/pseuds/Golbez
Summary: William Banter meets his match.





	Civil Ways

**Author's Note:**

> Yes hello William Banter is MY SON and I wrote this in an obsessed trance within 24 hours (with details from memory so Oops if I got something wrong) immediately after playing through all of Last Word in a single session. It truly got the last word on me!

When Mrs. Saymore speaks, one listens. 

William learns this within the week he comes to Sommerhaus, amidst the bombardment of new social rules—carry yourself with grace, soften your footsteps, bear the verbal assaults, no talking back—it's a good thing he's a fast learner. He learns that Mrs. Saymore's word is law, and more than that, the woman has an aura that commands even before she utters a word.

It's not like the streets, not like the nameless gutter he clambered out of. Words mean nothing there. Here though—words work just as well as a knife in the art of persuasion.

The life of a servant is ill-suited to him, for he has never held his tongue on the streets and many a bully was disarmed first by his insults before he took to physical means. But the hunger came, and perhaps, even more than that, the ennui of a life wasted on surviving, and William had weighed his choices as one of the houseless. Soldier, chose nearly everyone around him. A life of verbal battle and unreachable glory out on the field with less chance of starving, they'd dreamt.

Servant, William had chosen. He quite liked being alive.

(Years later, he'll tell a young, houseless lady that servants and soldiers are essentially the same—)

William listens when Mrs. Saymore speaks. He listens, and takes apart her words when her brat isn't crying for a servant. He steals her words and rearranges them and makes his own, then he tests them against the bathroom mirror, sneering as he imagines himself one of _them_. Pompous and oblivious to all but the who’s who of the world.

He can't quite get it right. The words do not quite roll off his tongue the way they do Mrs. Saymore's. When he speaks, he feels nothing.

There is no one listening anyway. Servants are not meant to speak.

Or even have faces, if the Saymore brat is to be believed. Not once, through the years William attends to him, does the brat look at him. This is to be Mrs. Saymore's heir? This pampered, spoiled, useless sliver of a boy, who did not even know how to talk to anyone? Who scribbled away uselessly in his journal rather than honing his verbal tools? William supposes that if he were a kinder person he'd put the boy to task and train him in secret, but the boy deserves no kindness when the only reason he is free to waste his days so childishly is that he was born to parents with a name. What a waste of a name, he thinks, watching by his post at the servant's door. He could do better if he had that name, if he had been born an heir, if he was master and not servant.

He indulges the fantasy. He has little else to do. If he were the boy raised in this room, he'd storm up to Mrs. Saymore and tell her he had things to say and _she_ was to listen to _him_. He is not to be coddled and pampered when there are things of import he wishes to discourse! The fantasy shifts, and he blinks, considering the back of the brat's chair, imagining for a moment that he might twist the boy to his whims, make him adore and listen to William rather than his mother. Hah! He's sure that even as an adult the boy would be a nuisance more than pleasant company.

(Years later, he stares into the stone gray eyes of that same boy—now a pathetic excuse of a man—and coldly asks him if he cares to enter the house he'd grown up in—)

What of Mrs. Saymore, then? A multitude of possibilities. She is a widow, surely she is lonely, surely she misses the passion, surely she wishes for more than social gatherings and maintaining a house. He is young, houseless, a promise of something _different_ if he can get even a single word in and show her he is not just another silent servant.

He dismisses the thought. He isn't interested in women. A handsome nobleman would be more appealing. It's a shame there is no longer a Mr. Saymore.

"Mrs. Saymore has summoned you by name."

It's a year or two after he first daydreams when another servant tells him this, a young lady, new to the house, appearing out of the service door with a soft voice so as not to disturb the young sir reading in bed. She has William's attention immediately. To be summoned not just as a mere servant, but acknowledged by name is the highest honor.

William likes to think he has grown since he first came to the Sommerhaus. Wiser to the ways of the gentleman and the lady, perhaps. A master of discoursing with his own reflection, certainly. Biting back the wit and insults that come naturally to him—why, he ought to be given a trophy for this one.

"Servant," is how Mrs. Saymore addresses him when he enters the living room. She is not alone, and her stony gaze never leaves the guest seated in the armchair across from her couch. She waves William over and he obeys without a word.

"Now, now, this is hardly necessary! I'll only be here for a day!" The guest protests, and William steals a glance at him as he crosses the room to them. A slim gentleman with quite the mustache, perhaps only a few years older than him. His coat is a strange, unidentifable orange, and the walking stick resting against his chair tells tales of him. William isn't particularly impressed, but the mysterious orange of a house new to him intrigues him. He takes the opportunity to examine the gentleman, at least, until the gentleman looks directly at him and makes eye contact.

He swiftly returns his gaze to Mrs. Saymore, schooling his expression so embarrassment does not slip through. He is a professional.

"Nonsense." Mrs. Saymore's tone has taken on a command. "I insist! Servant—" Here, her tone shifts rapidly to a suggestion with a very strong threat behind it. "Professor Chatters will be staying with us until after dinner. You are to attend to him today."

"Yes, Mrs. Saymore." It is the level of wit he is expected to use in front of her and her guest. Whatever the professor asks of him, he will do so silently and perfectly and definitely without unloading the list of insults for the gentleman he's already compiling in his mind.

"Now, now, Mrs. Saymore—to let this go on would deprive you the pleasure of hosting yours truly. Personally, I might add." 

Mrs. Saymore rises from her seat, not even fazed by the professor's words. A bright, but polite, smile crosses her face and William knows the professor is finished.

"Oh professor, I'm afraid I have another matter to attend to, I shall have to see you at dinner." Mrs. Saymore bats her lashes and glides past William to her study door. "Until then, you simply _must_ have a tour of our grounds. Why, I imagine you'd find our gardens most delightful."

William watches the professor this time, delighting in the surprise passing over his face. He's found, from watching all sorts of nobles discourse, that the moment of shocked vulnerability immediately after the last word is the most pleasing to watch. There's nothing quite like watching the high and mighty falter.

"Hm, yes, of course...your gardens..." The professor can all but mumble in agreement, rising from his seat in a trance as Mrs. Saymore makes her exit.

"Right this way, sir." William is already at the terrace door, gesturing how the professor is most welcome to come closer. Still in his trance, the professor takes his walking cane and ambles over.

And stops in front of him.

Once again Professor Chatters makes eye contact with him, and this time there is a smile that is more kindly than polite. "After you, mister...?"

He does not reply, does not take the bait. He is a professional. This will not be like the stories he's heard of Prattle house's servants failing to keep silent in the face of their mistress's goading. His expression remains calm, though he can't help but think to himself what an average man this professor was. Taking out his loss against Mrs. Saymore on the help! How typical.

William reaches for the door, but Professor Chatters is faster, stepping up to turn the handle and fling the door open. Chatters steps through into the cool morning air, but he does not make for the garden. Instead, he turns to face William.

"I can see why she'd assign you to keep a guest company." The professor chuckles. "You are the best at what you do, I imagine, but for now I would prefer your company as an actual person, not merely as the most well trained servant my host has chosen to foist upon me. I swear on the name of my house that if you tell me your name or how to address you, and even if you did not, I will not say a word of it to your mistress."

He hesitates.

The right thing to do would be to carry on quietly, to step through the door and shut it and then stand guard like a proper servant until the professor has an actual need of him, as he's been trained to do. Yet the professor's words appeal directly to the most impulsive part of him, and to see for one day what it'd be like above his station, after all that practice he's had with the bathroom mirror—

(Months later, they lounge in Chatters' new study, once Mrs. Saymore's, together, tossing chit-chat at each other for the sake of silliness and fun—)

"You could start with 'my lord', and we'll go from there," William says. He's already calculating how quickly he can gather up his meager things before Mrs. Saymore physically tosses him into a well or commands him to throw himself out a window, but he doesn't stop. "Then maybe an actual name, if it pleases me."

There, again, the surprise. But to his horror, it turns into an eager smile, a hearty laugh, and the professor is walking away from him toward the garden.

"Well, well, I'll get a name out of you, yet. Come, I simply must see the garden, after all." A pause, a turn of the head. The professor _winks_ at him. "'My lord,' was it? I'm certain you can think of better pet names than that."

William, for the first time in his life, standing at the terrace door and watching the back of that curious orange coat mingle with the greenery of the garden on this cool spring day, is speechless.

It takes him a moment to collect himself. He follows the professor. It will not be the last time he does so.


End file.
